The people of Bashir, a Shi’ite Turkmen village south of Kirkuk, called off their 40-day hunger strike this morning after The Voice of the Martyrs – an interdenominational Christian organisation based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma – agreed to indoctrinate each and every member of their community.

“What I saw over there [in northern Iraq] disturbed me deeply. [The villagers] were malnourished to the point of emaciation – it was almost as if their physical health had been taken hostage and held to ransom,” Todd Nettleton – VOM’s principle poverty pornographer – told The Hoc Post.

‘What’s going on here?’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s the 6th of July – Ramaḍān ended yesterday. Why aren’t they celebrating Eid ul-Fitr?’

“I approached a group of photo opportunities that had mounted a picket outside the local market. Fortunately, one of them hadn’t yet sewn his mouth shut, so I asked him, ‘Fast or famine?’”

‘Neither,’ he replied. ‘We’re refusing to eat until we’ve been force-fed Christianity.’

“It was at that precise moment I realised I had to do something.”

“We AirDropped a load of thoughts and prayers – but [the protestors] couldn’t gain access to a hotspot. So we sent them every issue of The Action Bible – but they didn’t know how to read the Language of God. Finally, we provided them with five loaves of unleavened body and two bottles of unfortified blood – but they wouldn’t partake of the Communion without first receiving the sacraments of hazing,” said Cheryl Odden, Vice President of Communications for The Voice of the Martyrs.

“We were exhausted, and so were our options – we had no choice but to capitulate to their demands.”

“We couldn’t take Jesus into our stomachs until we had accepted Him into our hearts, and we couldn’t accept Him into our hearts until we had been holy waterboarded,” father of three Abu Hassan explained.

“Our souls were starving, dehydrated, and exposed. We hungered – not for food, but for the bread of life. We thirsted – not for drinking water, but for the fruit of the vine. And we ached – not for clothing, shelter, or medical supplies, but for Islamic Conversion Therapy,” he added.

“But now, thanks to The Voice of the Martyrs, our hunger has been sated, our thirst slaked, and our ache dulled. Indeed, had [the organisation] not intervened when [it] did, our spirits would have surely gone the way of all flesh.”

A post-mortem examination performed on Omar Mir Seddique Mateen after his death has confirmed suspicions that the deceased died of a deadly masculine overdose.

According to the report released by the Salon Medical Examiner’s Office, Omar Mateen passed away on the night of June the 12th after shooting up at Pulse, a gay nightclub located in Orlando, Florida.

The three-page document also revealed that the deceased suffered from “chronic androgenism”, a congenital disorder characterised by the development of malignant growths between the mons pubis and perineum.

“At the time of his death, Mr Mateen had enough masculine coursing through his veins to kill 49 people,” said Amanda Marcotte, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy.

Indeed, conservative estimates indicate that the highly addictive drug, which occurs naturally in the cajone cactus and produces effects similar to those of anabolic steroids, is responsible for 100% of all fatalities every year.

Despite the fact that the official cause of death is listed as “masculine toxicity”, trace quantities of homosexuality (chemical formula: 2Ga Y 4U), and homophobia (I H 8F Ag S) were also found in Mateen’s system.

The former, a stimulant, is sometimes used in combination with the latter, a depressant. It’s unclear, however, whether “screwballing” played a role in Mateen’s tragic death.

Nevertheless, Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, Mateen’s ex-wife, has claimed that the deceased frequently complained of symptoms commonly associated with bruxism, a condition that often affects those who, due to excessive long-term abuse, have built up an intolerance to homosexuality – or Grindr, as it’s also known.

Before he died – that is, whilst he was alive – Mateen called 9-1-1 and informed the dispatcher that he had self-administered a lethal dose of proscription pills. For this reason, the blood, hair, urine, and tissue samples taken from the deceased were also tested for Islamism (S U Ra Ta La Ra F 80). The results, however, proved inconclusive.

In fact, given the overwhelming amount of insufficient evidence, it’s far more likely that Mateen was on The Christian Right (Ge Ne Si S 19), which is classified as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

A prominent Muslim cleric has issued a fatwā condemning Islamic altruism in the wake of the recent attacks on US blood banks.

In a statement released earlier today, Dr Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi described the situation in Orlando as a “humanitarian disaster”, and slammed Majlis Alealaqat Al’amrikiat Al’iislamia – the group responsible for the attacks – as “fundamentally un-Islamic.”

Dr al-Baghdadi also asserted that those who answered the aforementioned organisation’s calls for blood aren’t “real Muslims”, and for that reason, urged the media to refrain from referring to acts of Islamic altruism as Islamic.

These extremists do not speak for me, nor do they represent my religion. #NotInMyName.

– Dr al-Baghdadi, Twitter

As many students of history have astutely noted, however, this won’t be the last time ṣadaqāhists wreak havoc on Western soil, and nor was it first.

Indeed, late last year, members ofMan Hu Husayn – a ṣadaqāhist organisation inspired by the radical teachings of Imam Hussain ibn Ali, unleashed a devastating altruist assault on the city of Flint, Michigan.

Likewise, Almadaa Bila Mawaa – a group of Australian fanatics with ties to the Masjid Al Noor mosque in South Granville, is alleged to have orchestrated and carried out a series of coordinated attacks targeting civilians in the western suburbs of Sydney.

Consequently, many of Dr al-Baghdadi’s critics have accused the world-renowned exegete of invoking the No True Muslim fallacy.

“If ṣadaqāhism has absolutely nothing to do with the doctrine of Islam, why do the perpetrators of altruist attacks always say ‘Allāhu akbar’ before committing acts of altruism? The truth is, a hundred per cent of ṣadaqāhists are Muslims. That’s just a fact – there’s no way around it,” said journalist Glenn Greenwald.

“When a Christianist perpetrates an act of altruism in the name of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, left-leaning political pundits are more than happy to take him at his word. But when a ṣadaqāhist perpetrates an act of altruism in the name of the Prophet Muḥammad, these same ‘experts’ refuse to believe he believes what he says he believes. Why is that?”

As far as neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris is concerned, however, Middle-Eastern occupation of the West is to thank for Islamic altruism, not scripture. On the latest instalment of his Waking Up podcast, Harris highlighted the pivotal role socioeconomic and geopolitical factors play in the radicalisation of second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, before explicitly implying that Greenwald molests children.

“Every single day [in America] Christianist organisations like The Salvation Army commit acts of altruism, and yet it’s often rare that these incidents hit the headlines. In the event that they do make the news, however, one can’t help but notice the emergence of an alarming trend: Christianist attacks are downplayed, ṣadaqāhist attacks are sensationalised,” Harris said.

“Why does the media consistently use different language when discussing different crimes? Why is it that a group of [Christianist] lone wolves that acts together is called a charity, but a lone [ṣadaqāhist] lone wolf who acts alone is called an altruist? It’s gross, it’s racist.”

Unsurprisingly, Greenwald’s talking monkey Murtaza Hussain leapt to his owner’s defence, hitting back at Harris, and claiming that the New York Times bestselling author had consciously and maliciously taken Greenwald’s comments out of context in an effort to misrepresent his views and thereby destroy his reputation.

“No sane, rational person could possibly read what [Greenwald] wrote and think. He wasn’t saying that we should thank all Muslims for the actions of a few, what he was actually saying is that a straight line can be drawn from belief to behaviour.”

Nevertheless, according to Dr al-Baghdadi – who graduated from the Islamic University of Baghdad in 2000 with a BA, MA and PhD in Islamic studies – altruism has no basis in Islamic doctrine.

“Where in al-Qurʾān does Allāh instruct true believers to feed homeless kuffār? Where in the ʾAḥādīth does the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, instruct true believers to donate 30,000 bottles of water to The Red Cross? And where in the Al-sīra al-Nabawiyya does the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, instruct true believers to give blood? If Islam really did breed altruism, we’d all be alive right now.”

Amnesty International has been accused of white-black supremacism after demanding that the President of Malawi “condemn [the attacks on albinos] and protect those at risk.”

According to Yusra Khogali, the co-founder of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter, the statement released by Amnesty International is white-black supremacist because it perpetuates the harmful stereotype that the lives and body parts of white-black people are inherently more valuable than those of black-black people.

“The UN claims that in the past 18 months there have been 65 recorded cases of attacks on white-black people. But what about the thousands of black-black people who are murdered every single year? Given that the supposed plight of white-black people so obviously pales by comparison, why does it continue to take precedence over the actual plight of black-black people? The truth is, Amnesty International doesn’t care about black-black bodies. In fact, if albinos were black, no one would bat a lash.”

“Racism is prejudice plus magical powers minus melanin. So as far as I’m concerned, white-black people aren’t the oppressed, they’re the oppressors – and they need to start checking their white-black privilege,” she said.

“If this so-called ‘crisis’ proves anything, it’s that 75 years of British occupation has socialised the black-black people of Malawi to prize white-blackness over black-blackness. What Amnesty International and others fail to realise is that the real problem afflicting the nation of Malawi and its people isn’t the ‘ritual killing’ of white-black people – the real problem is internalised leukophilia.”

Though Khogali’s assertions may seem nonsensical at first blush, a recent recreation of the famous “Clark doll experiment” has conclusively shown that Malawian children as young as six years of age may harbour implicit racial biases.

Using the same methodology as the Clarks, a team of Malawian developmental psychologists presented each black-black participant with both a white-black doll and a black-black doll, before asking them a series of questions.

Surprisingly, when the test subjects were asked to identify which doll possessed greater apotropaic properties, which doll would be worth more on the black market, and which doll they would rather play witch-doctor with, the vast majority of them pointed to the white-black doll rather than the black-black one.

Needless to say.

“While I’m not sure I’d go so far as to suggest that Amnesty International is guilty of white-black supremacism, the position the humanitarian organisation has taken on this particular issue is undeniably ethnocentric,” said esteemed anthropologist Scott Atran.

“Just because we in the West are inclined to find the murder of children and the harvesting of their organs distasteful, that doesn’t mean we are – or could ever be – justified in trying to impose our values on the people of Malawi.”

“You can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, so when it comes to culture, who’s to say what’s right or wrong? The butchering of albinos is a long and proud tradition of the Malawi people, so not only do we have to accept it, but we have respect it, too.”

Editor’s note: The Hoc Post reached out to Amnesty International for comment, but unfortunately the only response we received was the following automated reply:

Additionally, the fact that 740 of the article’s 1031 words might have been written by Werleman has lead many to speculate that he may also be guilty of authorship.

Unsurprisingly, the Australian-born copy-paster was quick to deny these allegations, dismissing them as “completely unfounded.”

According to philosopher Peter Boghossian, however, this isn’t the first time Werleman has tried to pass his own work off as someone else’s. Indeed, of the eight quotes Werleman ascribes to himself on his Goodreads page, only six were appropriated (with attribution, no less), while the remaining two appear to have actually been authored by him.

The Hoc Post reached out to Werleman very early this morning to see if he had anything to say in response. As per Werleman’s irreproachable ethical standards, the exchange that followed has been reprinted here without permission:

I’ve published 5 books and 100+ op-eds. You’ve read at least one of my books and know how many quotation marks, citations, and original thoughts weren’t used in Atheists Can’t Be Republicans.

Yes, I can see why [the Panama Papers essay is] a little problematic. Indeed, it was sloppy to include quotation marks for those quotes. But, nevertheless, it was a rehash of everything you’ve read before.

It’s hard to plagiarise, “We can be pretty sure there will be many more shoes to drop,” for instance, when [the line] hasn’t even been used before. It’s just a patent fact that no one else would have thought to butcher the expression in such a nonsensical way. Ergo ipso facto, how could I have possibly plagiarised it?

Point is — if after all I’ve plagiarised, people want to defame me for really what amounts to one account of integrity, well, not much I can do about that.

Less than an hour later, Werleman sent a follow-up email.

On further thought, I have no excuse for the quotation marks. Why I enclosed them, I don’t know. They shouldn’t have been. Very sloppy. But if you look over the entire body of my work, you’ll see that all of my op-eds are bereft of citations, quotation marks, and original thoughts.

And another.

It appears the quotation marks may have been a mess up with Middle East Eye’s editing process. They won’t put out a statement, but regardless I take no responsibility for not checking post publication.

Despite Werleman’s sincere attempt at an apology, however, Malcolm Waters, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Graham Fuller, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Benjamin Barber, Haroon Moghul, and The Huffington Post have threatened to file a class-action lawsuit against Werleman should he ever again give them credit where it’s due.

Late last year, Dr Larycia Hawkins, the then associate professor of political science at Wheaton College, was placed on administrative leave by the evangelical Christian liberal arts college for wearing a headscarf throughout the period of Advent.

Although Hawkins claims to have done so in a bid to better understand the plight of Muslim women living in the United States, many conservative Muslim women still considered Hawkins’ adoption of the hijab (habit) to be ḥarām (problematic). As Muslim journalist Amarra Ghani explained in a think piece published by Slate, “Hawkins may be attacked, looked at differently, stopped at the airport – but at the end of it all, she will be able to leave her experiment. We, as Muslim women, don’t have that same luxury [the ability to leave our experiment].”

If the Facebook post Hawkins made on Ash Wednesday is anything to go by, however, it would seem that such criticisms did little to weaken her resolve.

“Lent is a time when we, as Christians, strive to strengthen our relationship with God. We do this by repenting of, and atoning for our sins, and practicing asceticism,” she wrote. “As such, the ‘vice’ I have decided to abstain from this year is Lent itself. Instead, I will be observing the month of Ramaḍān. Please join me in the ongoing fight against Islamophobia by doing the same.”

Needless to say, Hawkins’ plans for the paschal season prompted a significant amount of backlash, with many Muslims and Christians accusing her of “cultural appropriation” and “apostasy” respectively. Despite having successfully addressed similar concerns in the past by ignoring them, in an attempt to “clear the air”, Hawkins finally broke her silence.

“What I actually meant was, converting to Islam, whilst remaining nominally Christian, might prove conducive to initiating a productive interfaith dialogue,” Hawkins told The Hoc Post. “Besides, it’s the similarities that are important, not the differences. Both Lent and Ramaḍān are devoted to ṣawm (fasting), zakāt (almsgiving), and ṣalāt (prayer), and in 2026, both will commence on the 18th of February. So not only do we worship the same Allāh, but we also celebrate the same holiday.”

When asked to comment on the theological implications of Hawkins’ recent remarks, Dr Philip Graham Ryken, the current President of Wheaton College, declined to do so “on the record”, as it would be “inappropriate.” Ryken did, however, go on to say that while faith may be “fluid” for Dr Hawkins, he believes that Christianity and Islam are “immiscible, like chrism and holy water.”

Not one to be so easily deterred, last night Hawkins issued the following statement online:

On the first Sunday of Lent, I underwent a hymenoplasty, and thereby became a born-again virgin. On the second and third Sundays [of Lent], I had my clitoral hood and glans clitoris surgically removed. On Laetare and Palm Sunday, I had my labia minora and majora excised. And on Easter Sunday, I had the edges of my vulva sewn together. As per tradition, an untrained medical professional performed all six of the operations using unsterilised instruments, and without anaesthetic or antiseptic.

Interestingly, the same Muslim women who had previously lambasted Hawkins for “co-opting” the hijab are now applauding the professor for her courage of conviction. The response from many Muslims, especially those in academia, has been so overwhelmingly positive in fact that Nazma Khan and Ahlul Bayt have called for the 27th of March to be recognised as World Clitoridectomy Day.

Reza Aslan, an eminent theologian and historian, has also roundly condemned Hawkins’ honouring of the “seventh pillar” of Islam – but for entirely different reasons. As Aslan sees it, while Dr Hawkins’ show of ‘embodied solidarity’ is obviously well intentioned, culture and religion, ritual and doctrine, infibulation and Islam, are self-evidently mutually exclusive.

“While Dr Hawkins’ show of ‘embodied solidarity’ is obviously well intentioned, culture and religion, ritual and doctrine, infibulation and Islam, are self-evidently mutually exclusive. They are – to borrow the late Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase – non-overlapping majesteria. As such, Hawkins’ conflation of the two is beyond facile,” he said.

“Now, is it possible for certain sūras to be interpreted in a way that would justify female genital purification? Absolutely. But The Qur’an doesn’t explicitly prescribe any such procedure, so it simply cannot be used to justify it. And even if it did, it wouldn’t.”

On the 6th of February, mere days after being “no-platformed” by the Northeast Conference of Science and Secularism, esteemed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins suffered what has been described as a “minor stroke”. Upon learning of Dawkins’ condition, the Church of England sent out a tweet, which read: “prayers for Prof Dawkins and his family”. Given that Professor Dawkins has made no secret of his atheism, the COE was accused by many internet commentators of perpetrating a “micro-aggression” against the prolific science writer.

Unsurprisingly, communications director Reverend Arun Arora was unwilling to acknowledge any wrongdoing on behalf of the church, let alone express contrition for disrespecting Dawkins’ lack of belief. Rather, in a palpably hostile and defensive written statement, Arora claimed the tweet was “genuine”, before adding that “in the event of a personal tragedy, how is saying you’ll be praying for someone any different than ‘sending them your thoughts’?”

In response to Arora’s non-apology, a petition launched on Change.org is calling for social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to provide “atheist-only safe spaces”. The campaign, which has garnered the support of almost 60,000 people, is also demanding that harsh punishments be meted out to those whom violate the proposed cyber sanctuaries, with repeat offenders to be penalised by having their online accounts – and offline jobs – suspended indefinitely.

“Many of us have been self-diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the trauma we experienced growing up in religious households. So when some shitlord says, ‘Bless you’ when we sneeze, or that they’re ‘praying for us’, not only does it invalidate our feelings by forcing us to indulge them in their delusion, but it can also be triggering,” said Nick Fraser, one of the petition’s many signatories.

“It’s bad enough that we’re socially conditioned to accept street-preacher harassment as ‘complimentary’, but the fact that faith apologists expect us to just ‘grin and bear it’ when we’re violently assaulted with such deliberately offensive different opinions – in our own homes – is absolutely outrageous. Day after day, hordes of zealots ‘troll’ private exchanges on public forums like Twitter, for no other reason than to derail conversations about atheist issues. They’ll often dismiss our arguments against the existence of God as being too angry or bitter to take seriously, and when they find they can’t ‘put us in our place’ by tone-policing us, or Godsplaining, they’ll try to silence us with life-after-death threats,” he said.

“Specific words have specific meanings, and these meanings have real-world consequences. Idiomatic and platitudinous expressions derived from religious doctrine and custom carry a historical weight – a weight that perpetuates a sense of superiority amongst theists, particularly adherents of Christianity. Even the reclamation of the term ‘atheist’ remains a point of contention amongst us non-believers. While it’s a source of empowerment for some, for others, it’s a constant reminder of the metaphysical abuse they were subjected to as children.”

Conversely, Josh Feuerstein (known affectionately by his followers as “Feuerbrand”), has characterised the reaction of Dawkins’ “disciples” to the COE’s tweet as “political correctness gone mad”, and derided them, and the man himself, as “professional victims” and “cry-bullies”.

Not one to shy away from controversy, the prominent anti-atheist, CRA (Christian Rights Activist), and self-proclaimed provocateur has often been labelled a bigot by many Third Wave Atheists for ridiculing their apparent preoccupation with “First World problems”, and for neglecting to speak out against the “actual oppression” faced by secularists and apostates in theocratic countries, especially those in the Middle East.

“Sure, atheists might have been a persecuted and marginalised minority hundreds of years ago, but what atheist in the West today is being burned at the stake for heresy, or having his tongue cut out for blasphemy? Is it illegal for an atheist to register as a presidential candidate? Are non-profit secular organisations ineligible for tax-exempt status? Are our banknotes inscribed with ‘In The Christian God We Trust’? No, of course not. So, to be perfectly honest, I think that if this recent episode proves anything, it’s that they’ve run out of dragons to slay,” he remarked.

“I’ve actually seen some people try to justify [the hashtag] by saying, ‘Well, y’know, the oppressed have the right to hate their oppressors.’ But if atheists really do hate Christians, why then do they continue to exploit institutions that were founded by us, like the American Journal of Science, and The Templeton Foundation? Why do they continue to pursue careers in academic fields we pioneered, like calculus, and chemistry? And why do they continue to use instruments we invented, like the reflecting telescope, and the MRI?”

Editor’s note: Despite the fact that Professor Dawkins is a racist, a sexist, and an Islamophobe, we at The Hoc Post would like to wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Dictated but not read by mononymous one-hit wonder Muḥammad, The Qu’ran took a mind-boggling 23 years to complete from its conception in 610 CE. Owing its initial commercial success to strong word of mouth, and a series of aggressive ad campaigns, The Qur’ān has since amassed a loyal following of approximately 1.6 billion people, which is no small feat given its complex structure and esoteric style.

Despite its growing popularity, however, The Qur’ān (and the fan-fiction that constitutes its “Expanded Universe”, or Ḥadīth), has, in recent years, been panned by a number of vocal critics for its alleged negative influence on youth culture, and by extension, civil society as a whole. Needless to say, these few voices have caused quite a stir in the media; polarising public opinion, and sparking condemnation from those who see no link between violent forms of entertainment and acts of violence. Add in the backlash against ex-fans, the fan-art boycotts, and cosplay bans, and the discussion surrounding The Qur’ān becomes even more divisive.

Now, normally I’m the kind of person who waits for any given hype-train to lose a significant amount of steam before climbing aboard, as I prefer to ride the rails on my own terms. However, as it continues to chug along with no sign of slowing, I figured now was as good a time as any to buy a ticket.

Faced with rabid fanboyism on one side, and sneering contrarianism on the other, I’ve made a concerted effort to be as objective as humanly possible – for the truth often lies somewhere in the middle. In reviewing such a contentious cult classic, I hope to bridge the gap between these two diametrically opposed positions.

Putting the “meta” in “metafiction”, The Qur’ān is not only written from the point of view of “God” (therein referred to as Allāh), but its very authorship is attributed to Him as well. In this way, The Qur’ān distinguishes itself from The Old Testament and The New, which were both “divinely inspired” (read: ghostwritten) by “God”. The Qur’ān also features a self-insertion (Muḥammad as Allāh’s “Messenger”), and an author surrogate (Allāh as an “idealised” Muḥammad).

Interestingly, throughout the novel, Allāh refers to Himself with both the third person singular “He”, and first person plural “We”. This suggests to me that the character suffers from dissociative-personality disorder, which would explain His (or should that be Their?) propensity for caprice and self-contradiction. Given the extremely human nature of Allāh, it could well be argued that the character is merely the personification of Muḥammad’s inner struggle (or “jihad”) against cognitive dissonance. Therefore, in my opinion, The Qur’ān tells the story of a man driven mad by the futility of his attempts to reconcile his conflicting views on matters of punishment and reward, vengeance and mercy, prurience and prudery.

Though it’s certainly not the first work of fiction to employ an unreliable narrator (see: The Gospels), The Qur’ān features one of the best uses of it I’ve ever encountered. For example, in the second Sūra, Al-Baqarah, Allāh asserts “this is a perfect Book, there is no doubt in it”. What follows, however, could hardly be described as “perfect” in any conventional sense. Whether it’s the type of punishment Allāh prescribes for proscribed acts, or the number of wings an angel is said to have, The Qur’ān is rife with inconsistencies. Like Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, however, these “no sooner spoken than broken” violations of internal logic, or self-imposed “rules”, are unambiguously intentional, and ingenious in their execution.

Also of note is the novel’s non-linear narrative, which allows Muḥammad to do away with (most of) the superfluous nonsense that made the Book of Genealogy such a snoozefest, e.g. the plodding origin story, the interchangeable tales of sibling rivalry, and all that begetting (do you even in medias res, Broses?). With that said, however, a family tree diagram or two would have complimented The Qur’ān’s already Tolkienesque appendix nicely.

Conversely, of all the literary devices Muḥammad utilises throughout The Qur’ān, his use of “direct address” seems to me the most pretentious and self-indulgent. Like a more neurotic and obnoxious Woody Allen, Allāh goes full Gorbachev on the fourth wall, reducing its rubble to dust as He soliloquises from start to finish. This particularly frustrating aspect of The Qur’ān is further compounded by Allāh’s many pre-emptive responses to critics (“disbelievers”), His overuse of the “Palahniukian chorus” (the ad nauseum repetition of certain lines), His flagrant abuse of the rhetorical question (which comes across as snide and condescending), and His relentless “teasing” of The Qur’ān II: Day of Resurrection (the sequel we never got).

Although The Qur’ān assumes familiarity with The Bible, it is by no means necessary, as Muḥammad briefly summarises the more memorable stories from both The Old Testament and The New. While this will be of some benefit to neophytes, these “Last time on The Bible…” recapitulations are, at best, tantamount to name-dropping in a bid to stay relevant, and at worst, serve only to pander to diehard devotees of the originals. Furthermore, every single one is prefaced with “And remember the time…” It’s so formulaic I felt like I was watching an episode of Family Guy. Honestly, I kept expecting each iteration to culminate in a non sequitur cutaway gag: “…when We got that whore stoned and painted the town red?”

Indeed, were it not for the fact that Noah, Moses, Abraham, etc. are public domain characters, Muḥammad would have surely encroached on Tarantino territory – a place where the borderline separating plagiarism and homage is blurred to the point of nonexistence.

Thankfully, as The Qur’ān functions both as a third instalment, and a standalone “reimagining”, this is not the case. Worth noting, however, is the controversial ret-conning of Jesus, who, according to The Qur’ān, is not the Son of God, did not die by crucifixion, and was, therefore, not raised from the dead. While these changes have corrected for Jesus’ much-maligned “comic book death”, and the lazy, yet needlessly convoluted Deus ex machina of “vicarious atonement”, they have also earned Muḥammad the ire of New Testament enthusiasts. Curiously, The Qur’ān is not without its own insufferable purists, as there are those for whom the very idea of an abridged, illustrated edition for children is enough to cause offence. Renderings of such a sort have worked miracles for The Bible, so it seems to me, more than anything, a missed opportunity.

Originally written in Classical Arabic, one can only speculate as to how much is lost in its translation to English. Despite this, however, the poetry of the author’s minimalistic prose is as beautiful as it is imaginative. Take the recurring imagery of “gardens through which streams flow”, for instance. Mundane? Absolutely. But by juxtaposing it with “the Fire”, Muḥammad elevates the terrestrial to the transcendent. Plus, with badass lines such as “Every soul shall taste of death”, and “Hell shall be his sufficient reward”, it’s easy to see why The Qur’ān is so popular – it’s almost as quotable as Mean Girls. Granted, the novel’s aestheticisation of violence may turn some readers off, but for gore-hounds like myself, it’s a huge tick in the “pros” column.

With respect to the novel’s cons, however, there is, of course, the unavoidable issue of Muḥammad’s treatment of women throughout The Qur’ān. Firstly, apart from Maryam (who, incidentally, had her “choices” thrust upon her), none of the other women that appear in the novel are even mentioned by name. Instead, they are relegated to the lowly status of props. Secondly, the fact that the novel’s female characters exist solely to extol the virtues of, or to “develop” the men around them, or to simply advance the plot, is beyond disappointing. Moreover, as no two female characters occupy the same story, let alone talk to each other, The Qur’ān fails to pass the Bechdel Test by default.

There’s no doubt some may take exception to my reading of The Qur’ān as largely metaphorical, but my interpretation is just one of many, and while all are equally valid, it seems rather unsophisticated to take a literalist approach to the text. Although detractors have slammed The Qur’ān for its perceived ableism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and homophobia, it’s important to remember that the author was a product of his time. Yes, the thematic concerns of the novel are problematic to say the least, but one wouldn’t dismiss the oeuvre of H. P. Lovecraft based on his moral failings, would they? The personal life of Muḥammad is irrelevant. One must disentangle the art from the artist. To take any work of fiction out of its historical context and judge it by the ethical standards of today is just absurd. The Qur’ān successfully captures the zeitgeist of 7th Century Saudi Arabia, and for that, it demands respect.

For all its flaws, The Qur’ān is an absolute page-turner, and would surely make a welcome addition to any bibliophile’s collection. Like The Room, Samurai Cop, and Battlefield Earth, The Qur’ān is so ḥarām it’s ḥalāl.

In response to the recent spate of unsavoury allegations made against celebrities like Rolf Harris, Bill Cosby, and that guy from Glee, the Australian Government has proposed legislation that would require all current and former children’s entertainers to register as potential sex offenders. The bill furthers stipulates that the potential perpetrators would also have to remain within 100 metres of their closest school and/or park, so that their potential activity can be better monitored.

For some, however, the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough, having attracted criticism from a vast number of concerned parents for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that the database, which will only be accessible to the general public, could be mistaken for an online directory of babysitters and birthday party performers, such as magicians and clowns.

“The fact of the matter is that background checks and Working with Children (WWC) licences have failed to protect our kids, so what’s to say that this new bill will be any different?” said mother of two, Tina Vaughn, who recently divorced her husband after learning that he had been harbouring a deep, dark secret.

“I remember finding packets of macaroni in the pantry, and sticks of glue in the cupboard, and not thinking much of it at the time,” she recalled. “However, a few months later, I came home from snapping pictures of some creep at Westfield Knox shopping centre, only to find my husband juggling fruit right in front of our kids. Needless to say, I placed the sick bastard under civilian arrest and promptly alerted the Facebook authorities,” Vaughn said, before adding, “Hyper-vigilance is key. If you ignore the telltale signs, you do so at your own peril.”

Conversely, Chris Branson, a former friend and employee of Rolf Harris, has said he fully supports the bill. “After [Harris] was sentenced [to five years and nine months in prison], I realised I no longer had anything to lose by coming forward. So I did just that,” Branson revealed. “I think I can be forgiven for not saying something sooner, as my moral fortitude had been steadily weakened by having not existed in the first place. But, if this law is passed, I can rest assured that should I ever be confronted with a similar situation, I’ll be completely justified in turning a blind eye and relying on someone else, most likely the victims, to sort it out.”

“I’m not a psychic. I can’t predict future actions from past behaviour. It’s only in retrospect I noticed all the little things he did and said, like telling me he wanted to fuck kids,” Branson noted. “Then there was this other time where he made a vile and offensive joke about the Australian cricket team. We were driving to a corporate dinner and I said, ‘Rolf, you can’t tell that. The Baggy Greens are a national treasure’.”

Slamming the bill as totalitarian and an obvious attempt to punish people for pre-crimes, Greg Page, a man who wishes to remain anonymous, went on to suggest that if the bill were enacted, his life would be ruined.

“I’ll lose my job, my family, and my friends,” he said. “Not only will I have to go door-to-door informing my neighbours that I used to entertain children for a living, as if that isn’t embarrassing enough, but I’ll also be expected to tell them, ‘Oh, by the way, I may or may not be a rapist. Care for an autograph?’ It’s outrageous. What if they have No Salespeople signs up? I’ll look like a total buns-hole. With any luck, they’ll simply assume that Mormons have started wearing yellow skivvies, and I’ll be called a sausage-head and promptly asked to leave.”

“Speaking of which, why the fudge is there a religious exemption clause? I mean, first mandatory vaccines, now this? It’s absolute bull-sugar,” Page continued. “They [priests] play dress-ups, tell fairytales, and sing nursery rhymes. How are they not entertainers? It’s such a double standard. Why should those cunts get special treatment?”

Though Page claims to have been successfully rehabilitated after “going straight”, and turning his back on a life of The Wiggles, in 2012 he embarked on a world tour with the original “line-up”. Furthermore, he is known to have made regular appearances in re-reruns of both the aforementioned show, and the educational program Butterscotch’s Playground, which has lead many to believe he may be a recidivist.

“I’m a respected member of the community,” he said. “If you can’t trust the people on TV, whom can you trust?”

On the other side of the globe, however, the problem of what to do with potential sex offenders once they’ve been indicted is being dealt with in a rather novel way. Inspired by their friends and allies in Saudi Arabia, the US Government will be instituting it’s very own brand of shari’a (Islamic law), which will first come into effect with the criminal and civil proceedings against comedian and actor, Bill Cosby.

This body of laws, as traditionally practised in many of the Gulf States, not only dictates that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man’s [Article 2, Subsection 282], but that four male witnesses must be provided by the prosecution in order for a rape case to go to trial [Article 24, Subsections 4 and 13].

As Cosby will be testifying against himself, this shouldhave brought the total number of witnesses needed to three males (or six females). In the conversion of Muslim math to that of the Christian faith, however, the Supreme Court made a slight miscalculation, resulting in a ratio of 50 deponents to every 1 defendant.

Despite abiding by this ruling, and securing a confession from the accused, many still fear that a guilty verdict is highly unlikely. “If he’s acquitted, and chances are he will be, they’ll just move him to another sitcom,” lamented Gloria Allred, who is representing 29 of the supposed victims. “As a lawyer, I probably shouldn’t say this, but there really is no justice in this world.”

Following revelations that Virginian high school educator Cheryl LaPorte tricked her students into denying the God their parents instructed them to believe in, it has since come to light that World Geography wasn’t the only class in which she had been teaching false doctrine.

In response to the initial concerns, which were raised when it was revealed LaPorte had forced her pupils to write a non-Christian profession of faith, Riverheads Principal Eric Bond asserted that the textbook (from which LaPorte derived the lesson in question) also includes Judeo-Christian exercises. Unfortunately, this did nothing to assuage the collective outrage of the community. Instead, it prompted thousands of angered parents to examine the school curriculum more closely, which led to a deeply disturbing discovery: LaPorte, who also teaches math, had dedicated an entire subject to the study of The Book of al-Jabr.

Consequently, Jackie Duff, a devout Baptist, has accused LaPorte of willfully violating the First Amendment of the Constitution (which necessitates a wall of separation between Muslim church and Christian state), in order to promote a sinister pluralistic agenda. “It goes against everything our Founding Fathers stood for,” she lamented. “We need to keep the wrong religion out of our government-funded institutions.”

“What ever happened to Roman Catholic numerals anyway?” Duff continued. “They weren’t perfect, but at least they were Christian. Muslim numbers, on the other hand, are inherently incompatible with our alphabet. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best.”

At worst, Duff claims, LaPorte’s efforts to reconcile the ii constitute yet another transparent attempt made by public schools and their staff to undermine traditional American values, which, she suggests, further marginalises adherents of Christianity – a historically oppressed majority in the United States. As such, Duff, like many other parents, has not only called for LaPorte’s resignation, but her termination as well.

With reports now surfacing that LaPorte and other faculty members have been inundated with Cs of Ms of “vitriolic” anti-math emails, it would seem that Duff is by no means alone.

Indeed, according to Augusta County Sheriff Randall D. Fisher, the contents of i email in particular were especially troubling. Fisher alleges that it contained a “meme”, which was made by combining a photo of a praying child with a crudely drawn picture of an amputated hand, and featured a caption that read, “This is America. We count on Jesus here, not our fingers”.

Though some have described the furore as “ridiculous”, as Duff remarked, “Better blown out of proportion than blown up.” Duff then went on to suggest that the aforementioned image, in addition to those that depicted beheadings, probably weren’t intended to be threatening, but were, in all likelihood, meant to be illustrative of what might happen if someone were to do something.

Kimberly Herndon, the mother of one of LaPorte’s students, said she was terrified her son would convert to Extremism as a result of being exposed to dangerous ideas like “writing in tongues” and “letter math”.

“I got a call from the Principal [Bond] the other day. He said there had been an incident, and that I needed to come down and collect my son as soon as possible.” Apparently, after reciting The Pledge of Allegiance, Herndon’s son began to shake uncontrollably and foam at the mouth. “Naturally, I didn’t think, I just reacted. I rushed down to the school, pulled him out of creation science class, brought him home, and ran him a baptism.”

Herndon said that when she arrived, she found her son in a state of delirium. “While the rest of the class were making preparations for the Christmas concert, he was rocking back and forth in the corner of the room, sweating profusely, eyes rolled back, chanting death to America over and again.”

Suspicious of the teacher’s motives, Herndon alleges that LaPorte was trying to brainwash her child with subliminal messages, a radicalisation tactic, which, Herndon surmises, was inspired by the back-masking techniques Isis uses to recruit “fans”.

“Why didn’t she include a translation of the script on the assignment paper? Why was my son writing a prayer in Islamic, a language he can’t even read?” Herndon queried. Though somewhat confused about the issue at hand, Herndon nevertheless took the opportunity to voice her disapproval. “Why aren’t our kids being taught Trininometry anymore? The only arithmetic my son should be learnin’ is that 1 divided by 3 is 1. X don’t equal nothing. It’s a word-maker! I mean, what’s next? Suicide vests in shop class?”

While school officials have vehemently condemned LaPorte’s insidious attempts to indoctrinate her pupils by way of calligraphy and algebra, they have yet to decide what is to become of the teacher, or her career.

They have, however, announced that an intensive anti-terror seminar has been organised for LaPorte’s students. The workshop, which is set to take place over the Christmas break, will be presided over by the school chaplain, who will also be providing one-on-one counsel to those he considers most in need of salvation.

In any case, all is expected to return to normal by the time class resumes in the New Year, with officials maintaining that Riverheads will continue its proud tradition of showing the “fact” of evolution for what it really is: just a theory.